Impulse (1984)


 While during the 1980's it was a popular well seen movie, Impulse in more recent years seems to have disappeared, easily available on foreign shores in the UK Impulse has neither been seen on TV or video since 1989, and it's a tragedy really. Not quite horror, edgier than a thriller Impulse offers a very plausible scenario in a world where chemicals can most definitely be our enemy.

In a small farm town in Midwest America the afternoon's peace and tranquillity is disturbed by what appears to be an earthquake. While damage to the town is minor, slowly the effects of that afternoon's activity take hold. It several afternoons later that Jennifer (Meg Tilly) receives a phone call from her mother, who seems to be in an enraged state. As the conversation gets hostile, suddenly a gunshot turns the conversation to silence.



After the attempted suicide of her mother Jennifer and her doctor boyfriend Stuart (Tim Matheson) return to Jennifer's home town to visit. Pleased to be home amongst familiar faces Jennifer soon realises that things have changed, the locals are more sexually charged and also considerably more hostile. The strangest of this behaviour being at her childhood home, as strange behaviour lead to murder Jennifer and Stuart find themselves trapped in a town where a handshake can just as easily result in death.

Impulse was a very low budget movie that escalated higher in the ranks than intended when three of the movies cast hit the big time. For John Karlen 30 years of acting had given him little, however having been cast in Impulse he was also offered a permanent role in popular TV show Cagney And Lacey, but Karlen was the least boosted of the stars. Meg Tilly embarked on three movies at the same time, Impulse, Psycho 2, and The Big Chill; two of the movies being big hits allowing viewer interest in Impulse to rise. Finally cast in the of her brother Eddie, Bill Paxton also starred in two big movies that year Streets Of Fire (a rock musical) and Terminator. Another actor who was looking for a small acting part, to keep his hand in having been very successful years prior was Hume Cronyn, who as a result of the movies increased attention found himself much in demand, over 20 years since he had last been known as a popular actor. Impulse's moment of fame however was brief, it shot up glimmered gently then disappeared into the either, which is incredibly sad because Impulse is a very good movie.
There have been conspiracy tales of military testing on small communities in America since the birth of the nation, and Impulse kind of focuses on this. Chemicals stored in a bunker on Jennifer's family land become free, and in the combination of weather forces find themself in the water supply. The whole basis of the movie being that the residents are affected by the supply of water entering the town. The results of this insanity can vary from petty theft to murder, the theft issue being beautifully captured in a scene of bank queue rage as old age pensioners waiting eagerly for their pensions get a little out of hand.


What to me is so good about the movie is the slow building of insanity of the characters, some of which the movie takes great care in introducing to the audience before it turns them bad. A prime example of this being the great Hume Cronyn as Dr. Carr the local all in one medical service. Carr starts the movie as a caring elderly doctor, but slowly and through a series of unfortunate events you see him progress to something really quite evil. While Cronyn in his career played a few roles as the bad guy, I personally think of all his movies I have seen this is the best bad guy he plays. This good guy turned bad is met with both joy and sadness, because despite him being so good at being bad, you kind of want him to be the one pure soul in the picture.


Impulse is a very dark movie, with little break for light relief, the cheapness of the whole movie being part of its power. At the time no big budget movie would have achieved the sinister dark reign that Impulse had, with its vicious storytelling and its incredibly dark ending. And while I comment on its darkness it's important to point out that other than a small clothed sex scene there is nothing visually offensive here, it's all left down to the mind, no blood or gore and no preponderance of foul language.


Impulse is directed by Graham Baker whose previous movie was The Final Conflict (Omen 3) , Baker took a lot of the things he learnt on The Final Conflict to this his first American movie, he delivers that same edginess and raw footage, with incredibly wide angles to the American rather than British countryside, and rather like The Final Conflict it works incredibly well.


Impulse is sad to a level, because you get to see what a high quality actress Meg Tilly was, and it's sad that after so many low level offerings she turned her back on acting to become a novelist; her role her of Jennifer being her most charming and innocent of all her performances, while sporting a tough edginess to take her character into final battle mode.


For its incredibly low budget, and small scale values Impulse is a very big movie that is seldom matched in integrity in today's so called modern cinema.